There’s one thing I can say about 2020, it’s a year we’re all glad to leave behind.
COVID has taken away our friends, family, and colleagues as we struggle to keep ourselves and our families safe and healthy.
It’s hard to focus as the news highlights more cases and deaths in our hometowns and countries.
With news of COVID vaccines in the past few weeks, many people are finally seeing a light at the end of what we can describe as a terrible, horrible, no-good year.
I am looking forward to a better year in 2021.
Reflecting on my most popular published posts in 2020, readers enjoyed posts about accessibility, technology, and web design as well as posts about virtual work.
I haven’t changed my goal of publishing posts that are helpful to you in your work, personal life, and business, whether you’re a:
- Web professional
- Blogger
- Someone who wants to learn more about technology, security, and the web
Read on to learn which posts readers found most interesting!
10 Most Popular Posts Published in 2020
10 Things to Know About Twitter’s Alternative Text for Images
An update to a post I published earlier, learning how to add alternative text to images you post on Twitter remains a top visited posts.
I’m glad more people have become aware of making their images accessible to everyone.
Accessibility and Inclusive Design Meetup Groups
With COVID restricting people from meeting in person, meetup groups turned to YouTube and videoconferencing platforms to host and share information about accessibility and inclusive design.
Since 2015, I’ve been publishing and updating my list of 60+ accessibility and inclusive design groups around the world. With meetups turning to virtual services, it’s easier for everyone to attend an event.
Quick Tip: How to Convert Image Text to Text
I’ve seen an increase in the number of images of text shared on social media and websites. Images with helpful information that unfortunately isn’t available to everyone, due to lack of adjacent descriptive text or alternative text for the image.
Which is why I explained in my quick tip how to convert image text to text using Google Docs.
LinkedIn Learning Offers Free Courses on Remote Working and Virtual Communication Tools
The COVID pandemic brought a lot of changes in the workplace, including a focus on working from home for employees whose job didn’t require them to work onsite.
Which brought a new focus on remote working and a steep learning curve for people who never worked remotely in the past.
Shoutout to LinkedIn for offering their 16 courses in remote work and virtual communication tools for free.
Advent Calendars for Web Professionals: 2020 Edition
For the ninth year, I’ve published my annual collection of online Advent calendars for web professionals.
This year’s collection includes 17 calendars, including 11 Advent calendars from one organization focusing on design, strategy, and innovation.
Eventbrite and Accessibility
When I moved our Refresh Detroit meetup group from Meetup.com to Eventbrite to improve accessibility and usability for our members, long-time member Al Puzzuoli offered to review the accessibility of a sample event with a screen reader.
I was grateful for his help and published his findings in Eventbrite and Accessibility, one of the few posts online about Eventbrite’s accessibility.
Takeaways from If It’s Interactive, It Needs a Focus Style
At the March 2020 Chicago Digital Accessibility and Inclusive Design virtual meetup, Eric Bailey explained the importance of inclusive design in creating focus styles for interactive web elements.
In my recap of Eric’s talk on focus styles and interactivity, I highlighted affordances, fallback styles, and how you can quickly style both hover and focus state for links.
WordPress 5.5.1 Released, Developers Have Until March 2021 to Update Code
With the focus on removing old versions of jQuery, WordPress 5.5.1 was released with patch code so JavaScript doesn’t break after the removal of JavaScript globals.
Which means developers of themes and plugins have until March 2021 to update their code to no longer use deprecated code.
Photo of the Week: Irruption Year for Evening Grosbeaks
Like other birders in Michigan, I was thrilled to learn 2020 was an irruption year for the beautiful Evening Grosbeak.
The striking black, yellow, and white bird typically seen in the northern boreal forest, has moved south in search of food this fall and winter.
I haven’t seen one at my feeders, yet. But several of my fellow birders in the area report them weekly at their backyard feeders.
August 21, 2020: My Weekly Roundup of Web Design and Development News
It’s rare one of my weekly roundup posts makes my top 10 published posts list for the year.
Thanks to Laura Carlson for sharing my August 23, 2020 roundup post of web design and development news on Twitter, more people interested in user experience, WordPress, accessibility, CSS, and HTML became aware of my weekly roundup.
Wrapping Up
Did your favorite post make my top 10 list? Or do you have another favorite? Share your favorite post in the comments.
